


Over

by race-jackson (Race_Jackson23)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Infinity War Compliant, Introspection, Kinda, Multi, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Screaming At The Universe Hoping For Answers, Spoilers, Tony Stark Feels, Wow I'm Emotionally Destroyed Like The Fave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 13:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14450391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Race_Jackson23/pseuds/race-jackson
Summary: Silence reigns supreme, punctuated only by his ragged gasps as he tries to gulp in oxygen that refuses to be breathed, and it feels as if the entire universe is in mourning. There is no way he can really know this, even though he does, and it seems stupid to note something that is probably more him imprinting his pain onto the quiet around him, but still.otherwise known as "i came out of infinity war and i have a lot of thoughts and also tonyyyyyyyyy boiiiiiii so here's the fic about that"





	Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZaynsEyelash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaynsEyelash/gifts).



> I'm sorry. Thank @zaynseyelash, this is revenge for her evil ways.

That moment is the worst Tony has ever experienced in his life.

Something to ponder upon, for sure. He’s almost fifty, and as relatively easy as his life _should have been_ – what with being a rich white guy with genius level intellect and an attractive face and all – he has had experience with some real doozy-level moments. Finding out a good friend had kept details of his parents’ deaths from him? Painful. Being kidnapped? Not good; terrible, in fact. Free-falling through an alien portal after seeing said-aliens’ warship? Pretty much the Worst™. That’s not even all of them.

But this? Watching everyone around him flutter away into ash? Holding _the kid_ as he _blew aw–_

All the air has been sucked out of his lungs. His hand, coated in ~~what’s left of Peter Parker~~ dust, trembles. He can feel the blue lady (Nebula, someone had said, and Tony thinks to himself, _her parents must have liked the stars_ ) watching him, as if waiting for him to say something, but he can’t, because words have escaped him like air has and he doesn’t know if he can say anything. What do you say when a megalomaniac obliterates half the universe?

 _Not half_ , that nasty part of his brain snipes. _There were seven of you and now there’s only two. That’s more than half_.

Holding back his shudder is near-impossible.

Silence reigns supreme, punctuated only by his ragged gasps as he tries to gulp in oxygen that refuses to be breathed, and it feels as if the entire universe is in mourning. There is no way he can really know this, even though he does, and it seems stupid to note something that is probably more him imprinting his pain onto the quiet around him, but still. The universe must notice its loss, a tongue running over gaps left by lost teeth, only there are trillions of gaps and they were once people, not teeth.

Unbidden, Pepper’s face pops into his mind eye, and no matter what he does, there is no shaking it loose. In his head, she’s happy, smiling that soft smile of hers that simultaneously says he’s an idiot and that she loves him. He wonders vaguely, in that detached way that keeps the pain that he cannot handle at bay, if he’s lost her too. And then he corrects himself, because of course, he has, because Tony loses things when he finally becomes happy, _that’s how it goes_ _he should know this by now_.

Nebula is saying something. It takes all of Tony’s tattered concentration to turn his attention to her, to process what she is saying, and when he does, he loses himself to the pain.

“He won,” she says dispassionately, her words as hollow and unfeeling as the look in her eyes. “It’s over.”

Everything in Tony screams. Rage builds in his chest in a way it never has before, leaving him a snake spitting venom and spite. Not directed at Nebula; no, she has lost too, he knows that just by looking at her and her broken body and dead eyes. Not even towards Thanos, though the thought of him makes the anger worse.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he hisses.

Beside him, Nebula startles. For a beat, he can’t take his eyes off his hand and the ash ( _ ~~Peter)~~_ that coats it, and then he breaks like a dam, on his feet, screaming at the sky in all his _rage and fury and pain and anguish_ because–

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” he yells. “This is how it ends? _This_?”

Some part of him expects the universe to answer. It feels all the colder when it doesn’t.

“After everything – _everything_ – that has happened, this can’t be it. It just _can’t be_. I call bullshit! I call bullshit on this! This can’t be how it ends! All those people – just gone? Gone? How – how does that – I don’t believe that! Bullshit!

“And you know what, I get it! I get that I don’t deserve a happy ending, I really do, but you _let me think I_ – and all those people? All those people? They did! They didn’t deserve this! None of them deserved this! _How can this be it_?”

He wants to throw something. He wants to stomp and scream and rail at the cold, cold universe because after everything – after losing the Avengers, his pride, his sanity, _himself_ – after trying _so hard_ for _so long_ , it was all for nothing, _it all happened anyway_ , and he’s just so, so _tired_ of it.

And then the rage deserts him. Exhaustion seeps through his veins like a poison. His chest is hollow despite the reactor embedded in it. He falls to his knees, crouching into a ball and wrapping his arms around his knees as if to hold himself together.

It doesn’t work, but since when has he let that stop him from trying?

(Since when has he ever stopped? Since when has he had the choice?)

Wallowing in his pain for the briefest of moments, he whispers, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.”

When has he let that stop him from trying?

The answer is never. It’s not in his nature to give up, to stop trying, even when it all seems hopeless. He just doesn’t have it in him, no matter how much ~~and he does he really does~~ he just wants to curl up and die here on this dead planet.

He steels himself and gets to his feet. Nebula eyes him as he does so, an emotion somewhere between concern and wariness taking over her face when he meets her gaze head-on. No doubt she is wondering whether he’ll lose his shit again, and he has to admit that it’s a valid concern. He really wants to lose his shit again, but, unlike from before the end of it all, the thought of what faces him straightens his spine and hardens his resolve.

“It’s not over,” he says in a voice with far more confidence than he feels. Nebula’s lips thin, and he finds himself continuing, “It’s not over, not by a long shot. Quill said that once the Gauntlet was up, Thanos could wipe out half the universe with a snap of his fingers, yes?”

She says nothing. A nod is all she offers, her lips pressed still in that wary line, but her eyes taking on a calculating light.

“So if he can wipe out half the universe with a snap of his fingers, then it stands to reason we can restore it with a snap of our own.”

“It won’t work,” she rasps. The robotic tone grates on his ears. “We can’t win. There’s no way to beat him now that he has the Gauntlet.”

“Even if we fail,” he says, and it reminds him of another time when he stood down a god and told him the same thing, “even if we lose more than we already have, even if we can’t fix the universe … we can damn well avenge it.”

Scoffing should be impossible with her vocal chords so damaged, but Nebula manages it all the same. That same derision colouring her voice, she asks, “How do you suppose we do that?”

Doubtless, she means it as a mockery and yet, it is anything but. The hints of a plan are already sewing themselves together in his brain, but when he hears that? He knows he truly has only one choice to make, and so he gives the only answer he can.

“Together.”

She falters. He strides on.

“Do you know how to pilot that ship?”

A nod, hesitant and confused. His answering smile is more of a grimace, feral and devastating.

“Good. We have somewhere to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. [Come talk to me about this](race-jackson.tumblr.com) or leave a kudos or comment.


End file.
